The Review

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Thursday, March 31, 2016

CHICAGO - The Chicago Department of Buildings has issued a "Notice of Violation and Summons" to the building that houses the Chicago Republican Party over a sign the party erected earlier this year. The notice raises a serious question of First Amendment rights.

The sign, which simply reads "Chicago Republican Party, Chris Cleveland, Chairman" was found to be in violation of a Chicago ordinance that requires that a business first seek permission from the City to display a sign. Such permits, which are normally obtained through sign companies, typically cost $475 including fees and take up to three months to issue.

"What the City doesn't understand is that numerous court decisions prohibit them from regulating political speech in the same way that they regulate commercial speech," said Cleveland. "And a sign announcing that we exist is pretty much the definition of political speech."

"Besides, if we'd waited three months, we would have missed the primary season, when we needed the sign to attract volunteers," added Cleveland.

"I'm not going to ask anyone's permission to put up a political sign on private property," said Cleveland. "I refuse to apply for a permit."

It isn't clear who filed the complaint with the City over the sign.

There are other signs in the vicinity which lack permits, so it appears that the Republican Party's sign was singled out.

There is no allegation that the sign violates any rule other than the one that requires a permit. The sign itself is an unlit, lightweight vinyl banner attached to the side of the building.

As the first quarter of 2016 nears an end, violence in Chicago has reached levels unseen in years, putting the city on course to top 500 homicides for only the second time since 2008.

As of 6 a.m. Wednesday, homicides totaled 135, a 71 percent jump over the 79 killings in the same year-earlier period, official Police Department statistics show. That represented the worst first quarter of a year since 136 homicides in 1999, according to the data.

Shootings have jumped by comparable numbers as well. As of Wednesday, at least 727 people had been shot in Chicago so far this year, a 73 percent rise from 422 a year earlier, according to a Tribune analysis of department data.

Worse yet, that jump follows two consecutive years in which shootings rose by double digits, the analysis found. Homicides also rose by about 12.5 percent last year over 2014.

If there was any hopeful sign in the numbers, it would be that for most of March, homicides rose citywide by a more modest 25 percent from the same year-earlier period, the department said.

Ohio Governor John Kasich used a fork in New York to eat pizza Wednesday | ABC News

CHICAGO - Pizza has been a spicy topic on social media for the past two days - especially between the media and politicians.

Wednesday night, Republican presidential candidate John Kasich was ridiculed by media for eating thin crust pizza in New York with a fork (unforgiveable!), and the pizza headlines extended into Thursday, when via Twitter, CNN's Jake Tapper poked fun at the new pizza museum coming to Chicago.

The April issue of AEI’s Political Report examines exit poll and turnout results from both parties’ presidential primaries thus far. Which voters are more satisfied with their parties’ candidates? How strong is the #NeverTrump camp? What are some of the most interesting stories from the exit polls? This month’s Political Report is your guide to what voters are saying.

Are you satisfied? In a March ABC News/The Washington Post poll, 48 percent of Republicans said they would be dissatisfied with Donald Trump as the party’s nominee. More than 7 in 10 Democrats said they would be satisfied with either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. Primary exits polls thus far show that Democratic voters have been more satisfied with their winning candidate than Republicans have been with theirs.

#NeverTrump? Twenty-one percent of Republicans say they would vote for the opposing party’s candidate or stay home if Donald Trump became the GOP’s nominee (The Huffington Post/YouGov). Republicans were more likely than Democrats to say they would “definitely consider” voting for a third-party or independent candidate if Trump and Clinton were the major party candidates (21 percent versus 13 percent, respectively), but a plurality of both said they would “definitely not consider” doing so (NBC News/The Wall Street Journal).

Enthusiasm and turnout: At the start of 2016, more Republicans (52 percent) than Democrats (44 percent) said they were paying “a lot” of attention to the presidential campaign (CBS News). Republicans have also expressed more enthusiasm about voting. So far this year, Republican primary turnout has reached record highs, while Democratic turnout is on average lower than in 2008.

MADISON - Once a candidate for the GOP presidential bid in 2016 himself, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker endorsed Senator Ted Cruz for president this week, and released the following campaign ad Thursday, hoping to use Walker's 80 percent approval ratings to push Cruz over the top in next Tuesday's GOP primary.

Latest statewide polling shows Cruz at 40%, Donald Trump at 30% and John Kasich at 21%.

At the 1992 GOP convention, even though it was becoming apparent that a draft-dodging serial adulterer named Bill Clinton might bookend the optimism and character of the Reagan/Bush era, former President Ronald Reagan had this to say about our nation’s future: “America’s best days are yet to come. Our proudest moments are yet to be. Our most glorious achievements are just ahead. America remains what Emerson called her 150 years ago, ‘the country of tomorrow.’”

I have to ask: Do you believe Reagan’s pronouncement of nearly a quarter-century ago to be true today? If you answered “no,” I certainly understand why. But I believe President Reagan’s words are as true today as in 1992. Allow me to tell you why.

A flood of pessimism continues to swamp our nation, and in the process it has swept away the hopes and dreams of a hundred million Americans, leaving most justifiably angry, if not merely depressed. After more than seven years of abject domestic and foreign policy failures under the Obama regime and its cadres of Socialist Democrats, too many Americans, including more than a few of my fellow Patriots, have lost sight of all that is good and right with America.

Make no mistake: I’m a realist, and I have no illusions about the detrimental impact the last seven years have had on every quarter of our nation. But I do not get caught up in the 24-hour news spin cycle, be it CNN or Fox, and the “chicken little” syndrome they propagate.

I have history’s assurance that Reagan was right. It is the spirit of his words that are most relevant and they reach back to the dawn of our Republic.

Following this week's $30 billion budget deal in Pennsylvania, Illinois became the last state without a tax and spending plan for the fiscal year that began last July.

While most states are busy planning next year's budget, Illinois now holds the dubious record for the longest budgetary foot-dragging in recent memory, according the National Conference of State Legislatures. (Until this week, Pennsylvania had tied with Kentucky, which didn't get around to approving its fiscal 2003 budget until late March of that year, according to the organization.)

Despite their spectacular fiscal fail, lawmakers in the Land of Lincoln are showing little sign of progress in breaking the deadlock, now dragging on nine months past the deadline. Since then, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has been holding out for a package of business incentives and changes in collective bargaining laws that a Democratic-controlled legislature wants no part of.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Outrageous! The Illinois Human Rights Commission has fined a Christian business owner $80K for refusing to violate his conscience regarding hosting an event for a same-sex ceremony. And to make matters worse, they are mandating that he do the very thing that violates his religious beliefs.

This is the epitome of tyranny!

This bigoted decision is the latest strike in the war against religious liberty. Intolerant lawmakers and bureaucrats are now forcing citizens to do, say and act in accordance with a decidedly liberal worldview, and enforcing their dictates with the heavy hand of government.

Six years ago, Leftists in Washington D.C. decided to force all Americans into socialized health insurance, whether they wanted to or not.

Last year here in Illinois, Gov. Bruce Rauner joined with Leftists to pass a law to censor professional counselors and clergy from helping needy children suffering from unwanted same-sex attraction or gender-confusion.

Today, there is a bill pending in the Illinois House which would quash rights-of-conscience protections of pro-life medical professionals by forcing them to refer patients to abortion providers.

How have we come to a place where we allow government to tell citizens what they can or cannot do or say despite their moral objections? No American should be forced to do something that violates their sincerely held beliefs.

CHICAGO - A Christian businessman in Paxton, Illinois has been fined $80,000 by the unelected Illinois Human Rights Commission for his refusal to host a same-sex civil union ceremony at his TimberCreek Bed & Breakfast. Jim Walder, the owner, refused the business from Todd and Mark Wathen because of his religious convictions.

In 2011, Todd and Mark Wathen contacted TimberCreek, which publicly markets itself as "an upscale Christian country Bed & Breakfast," to specifically book the gay, civil union ceremony. When the business was declined for religious reasons, the couple appealed to the Human Rights Commission, whose members are appointed by the Governor. Eight of the eleven members were appointed by Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.

A judge with the commission ordered TimberCreek Bed & Breakfast to:

Pay $15,000 each to Todd and Mark Wathen as compensation for their emotional distress.

Cease and desist from exercising their First Amendment rights and allow full access to their privately owned facilities for gay marriage and civil union services.

Provide Todd and Mark Wathen access to their private facility, within one year, for an event celebrating their civil union.

Pay the Wathens' pro bono attorneys $50,000 in fees and $1,218 in costs.

"We are very happy that no other couple will have to experience what we experienced by being turned away and belittled and criticized for who we are," said Todd Wathen, who was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.

A representative from TimberCreek was not immediately available to comment.

John Dewey, known as "the father of modern education,” was an avowed socialist and the co-author of the "Humanist Manifesto.” The U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities discovered that he belonged to 15 Marxist front organizations. Dewey taught the professors who trained America's teachers. Obsessed with "the group," he said:

"You can't make socialists out of individualists. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society, which is coming, where everyone is interdependent."

Reflections on the downgrading of Chicago’s bond rating and the mind of a Chicago politician…

If you have ever attended a good old-fashioned museum, you may have seen this popular type of exhibit: the “reconstructed rooms” of the past:

The Thorne Miniature Rooms of the Art Institute of Chicago… the Streets of Old Chicago at the Museum of Science and Industry (down the hall from the ice cream parlor!)… and best of all, the old Milwaukee street scene in the Milwaukee County Museum.

As museum-goers walk past each room – we can’t go in, we can only peer through the windows – we see what life was like, long ago, in each different culture. An Estonian house, a Czech house, a German brewery, a country blacksmith…

We linger a little longer at the exhibits with a personal connection. My grandparents were Italian, Austrian, Irish and Scots-Irish. Those exhibits hit home, as we imagine the lives of our ancestors and better understand the choices they made, the possessions they valued, the heirlooms they lovingly passed on to us. For us modern Americans, raised with gas-fired furnaces and central air conditioners, wearing mass-produced clothing and using store-bought appliances, these brief moments at the museum are fascinating, illuminating, educational.

Sometimes – too rarely perhaps, but sometimes – we experience a similar window into the world of another culture, through the mass media. It’s one of the subjects they teach in journalism school – how to write a feature so it draws in the reader, helping him experience another place, another time, another way of life.

I had such an experience myself on March 29, while listening to the Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson Show on Chicago’s WIND, AM-560, known as “The Answer.” They were interviewing a Chicago alderman, and when Dan Proft asked him for his reaction to the freshly announced downgrade in Chicago’s bond rating (it’s now just one step above “junk,” assuming you’re into recycling), the alderman responded that “Chicago hasn’t yet found a dependable revenue stream.”

Kirk was the first to break ranks with the Republican caucus and meet with President Barack Obama's nominee to fill the Scalia vacancy, Judge Merrick Garland Tuesday. Kirk pushed for a hearing to consider Garland.

CHICAGO - Ignoring invoices and expanding programs rather than paying bills will get any family, organization or business in serious trouble sooner or later. For the city of Chicago, the writing's on the wall.

After the state Supreme Court stuck down pension reform last week, Chicago's credit rating is now one step about junk bond status. Bloomberg made that development a national story Monday.

"The two-step downgrade on Monday to BBB-, one rank above junk, affected $9.8 billion of general-obligation bonds and $486 million of debt backed by sales taxes," Bloomberg wrote about Fitch's new rating.

EAST PEORIA - Illinois 16th District U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger introduced legislation this week that requires the U.S. government to put together a strategy to destroy ISIS.

Void apparent leadership from the White House, which tends to take radical Islamist attacks like those on children and women at an Easter event Sunday afternoon in Pakistan and at the Brussels airport and metra system in stride, Kinzinger is pushing for a United States-led response.

"We need to be organizing indigenous forces where it be, whether it's Sunni tribesmen, whether it's Iraqi military," said Kinzinger. "They're finally getting in a position where they can fight again. Embedding our special ops with them, continuing the air strikes, and ultimately doing what's necessary to win."

Kinzinger also calls for the U.S. to recruit moderate Muslims to help in the fight against ISIS.

Kirk has broken with GOP leadership and scheduled to meet with Garland Tuesday afternoon in D.C.

“Illinois voters demand that their elected officials offer independent and thoughtful leadership that puts the people of Illinois first all the time,” according to a statement from his campaign. Kirk said he “looks forward to meeting with Judge Merrick Garland and remains hopeful that there will be a fair and thorough hearing along with a complete and transparent release of all requested information.”

But Kirk has not said whether he intends to lobby Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, to hold hearings and a vote on Garland. McConnell so far has not budged from his initial declaration that the Senate Judiciary Committee won’t consider a Supreme Court nominee until after the next president take office in January.

Monday, March 28, 2016

There is much speculation lately of a possible brokered GOP convention in Cleveland. Donald Trump only has around 739 delegates lined up and may not be able to reach the 1237 necessary for victory on the first ballot. There is even the most heinous of rumors of a plot that insider establishment types are stacking the decks of the convention Rules Committee which could change the rules on delegates being bound to their candidate on the first ballot if Trump does reach the 1237 delegate threshold.

Since some of Trump’s delegates will in fact be party insiders chosen at state conventions, if this happens Trump could lose the nomination before the convention starts. Like nuclear weapons though, the consequences of this tactic are so disastrous that they are unlikely to be used.

There are people I call "vanity voters" who only move themselves to action every four years during a campaign for president. They have a very high regard for their own opinions and only the office of president is important enough to engage their attention.

What these vanity voters fail to understand is that the weight of their single vote when millions are cast is so much less than their potential influence on other contests down the ballot that are less glamorous than leader of the free world. Relatively, few people vote in primaries for the state legislature or county and local office compared to the national contest and yet that very fact makes their votes more important at the lesser level.

CHICAGO - Tammy Duckworth's campaign released a video Monday that gives a taste of how Democrats will use Republican candidate Donald Trump's own words to discourage support for Republicans down the ballot leading up to the November election.

In this case, incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Mark Kirk's voiced support for Trump is being thrown back at him. D.C. insiders see Kirk as one of the most vulnerable incumbents, and electing Democrat Tammy Duckworth would erode the Republicans' slim majority in the U.S. Senate.

CHICAGO — Some Chicago Public Schools teachers who aren’t sold on their union’s decision to call a one-day strike will face consequences if they cross the picket line on April 1, DNAInfo.com's Mark Konkol is reporting:

A South Side high school teacher who asked not to be identified told me that she learned her plan to show up to school on the so-called “Day of Action” would get her kicked out of the union.

“It was said to me as a matter of fact that the consequence of choosing to come to school is being kicked out of the union,” the teacher said. “I’m furious about the whole thing.”

The event was the third held in Heartland's newly-named Andrew Breitbart Freedom Center at its Arlington Heights, Illinois, headquarters on Wednesday, March 23. The words "Andrew Breitbart Freedom Center" are emblazoned on the awning leading into the venue itself and is likewise printed predominately on the front wall of the gathering place.

BELLEVILLE - State records show the owners of a company hired to post election results online for St. Clair County made campaign contributions to a former county clerk. Donations included one just days before the contract renewal was to be considered.

The Belleville News-Democrat reported that Platinum Technology Resource of St. Charles donated $200 to then-clerk Bob Delaney in 2013. Days later the company sought contract renewal. The county board approved it.

Company owner Mary Pat Bennett's family donated more than $3,000 to Delaney over a period of years.

The no-bid contract pays the company $826,560. The company's website crashed for hours during the March 15 election.

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign history and women’s studies professor Tamara Chaplin will conduct the groundbreaking research into Gallic tomboy agitators. She’s calling it “Postwar French Media, and the Struggle for Gay Rights,” “a book-length study of the history of French lesbian activism since World War II.”

President Obama went to Cuba last week. In 60 seconds Roger Noriega explains that the President’s policy shift isn’t likely to produce good results for the Cuban people because it’s not contingent on the regime’s behavior.

The Affordable Care Act turned six years old last week. How is it doing? As Brittany La Couture notes, so far the law has not “bent the cost curve,” failed to meet enrollment targets, forced people into pricier health insurance than they otherwise would have chosen, and reduced competition in health insurance. Also, it has raised taxes.

Since its implementation, the Affordable Care Act has left a trail of failures in its wake: failure in mission, failure in implementation, failures to help society, consumers, patients, providers, and insurers through bad programs, lack of enforcement, and constitutionally questionable cost-shifting to states.

The Little Sisters of the Poor had their day before the Supreme Court last week. The charity, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, is challenging the Department of Health and Human Services mandate that employee health plans must cover contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs, which the Sisters find morally objectionable.

The Sisters argue that the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says that the government cannot impose a substantial burden on religious faith unless the restriction serves a compelling government interest and is the least restrictive means of doing so. As Sarah Torre observes in her summary of the case, how compelling can the government’s interest be when it has already exempted the health plans of about one in three Americans?

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Reflections on Obama-era foreign treaties and scandals, on the anniversary of Federalist #75

By John F. Di Leo -

The United States of America declared our independence in 1776, and finally concluded our revolutionary war at the negotiating table in 1783, but that didn’t solve our problems. The wartime alliance under the Articles of Confederation was a failure, uniting all the colonies under a loose and toothless Confederation Congress that could neither enforce the law nor pay its troops.

So the best and brightest of the Founding generation met at Philadelphia one more time, in 1787, and hammered out the Constitution of the United States, a brilliantly designed framework for government… which immediately so shocked and worried many of their countrymen that Alexander Hamilton gathered his allies James Madison and John Jay together to begin a ratification campaign on the Op/Ed pages. Jay was injured during his heroism in the Doctors Riot and had to pull out after just five essays, and Madison wasn’t as prolific as Hamilton, so Hamilton wound up writing about 2/3 of the marvelous essays now known to the world as The Federalist Papers.

Some have been famous from the beginning, others are rarely commented on. It’s always interesting, though, to pick up a long unnoticed article from 1788 and realize that Colonel Hamilton was so prescient, he foresaw the kind of people and problems that we have today, two and a quarter centuries out.

Friday, March 25, 2016

PLAINFIELD – State Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield) says there is a way out of the pension debacle, despite Thursday's Illinois Supreme Court ruling striking down a pending Illinois law aimed at reducing unfunded pension obligations in Chicago.

“The Supreme Court’s ruling supports my proposal in that it gives pensioners valid consideration. They are free to keep their current pension as it is," Batinick explained. And that's what his plan uniquely offers.

Analyses of the Court-rejected plan involving the Chicago Municipal and Chicago Laborers’ Funds showed the pension to become insolvent by 2024 and 2028. Still they rejected the reform that was pushed by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to address the severe underfunding of these systems.

While the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund investigates the McHenry County Board to determine if part-time county board members work a minimum of 1,000 hours to qualify for an IMRF pension, I want to remind readers that the Illinois General Assembly is also a part-time legislature. Saving taxpayers’ money is a priority for me, so while we discuss the pensions of 24 board members, I propose eliminating pensions for all 177 part-time state legislators for even bigger savings.

It’s parasitic and downright greedy for a politician to accept a pension at taxpayer expense. It’s no secret that politicians like House Speaker Mike Madigan voted for both pension sweeteners and pension holidays. It’s also no secret that Illinois pensions are underfunded. Unfortunately, the Illinois political class is afraid or unwilling to address the issue.

CHICAGO - Despite no foreseeable path to obtain the 1237 delegates needed to win the Republican presidential nomination, Ohio Governor John Kasich shows no indication of backing off his goal.

Friday, Kasich for America announced two new additions from Illinois to his presidential nominee effort - Chicago area's Dennis Cook and Rick Veenstra.Cook and Veenstra serve together with seven others who also joined the Kasich effort on the executive board of the Young Republican National Federation.

"I'm proud to be part of an organization that has supported outstanding Republican candidates at the grassroots level for over eighty years. This year, there is no doubt in my mind that Ohio Gov. John Kasich is the right candidate to lead our party to victory in November," Cook said in a statement.

In 1986, Evan Thomas and Walter Issacson wote a book called The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. The six men were two lawyers, two bankers, and two diplomats. Those profiled in the book were former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Charles E. Bohlen, former special envoy and New York Gov. W. Averll Harriman, former Ambassador George F. Kennan, former Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett, and U.S. High Commissioner to Germany John J. McCloy.

The six advised every president from FDR to LBJ and shaped the containment policy to hold the Soviet Union expansion in check and they helped create NATO, the Marshall Plan, The World Bank, and other institutions that helped to defend America during The Cold War.

NEW YORK - Presidential candidate Donald Trump exploded this week over an ad that the anti-Trump PAC "Make America Awesome" ran featuring a semi-nude photo of his third wife, super model Melania Trump.

The 69 year old Republican front runner blamed GOP opponent Ted Cruz for attempting to embarrass his campaign by running the photo taken 16 years ago with the words "Meet Melania Trump, Your Next First Lady ..." and then "Or you could vote for Ted Cruz."

The PAC's ad started a firestorm as the indignant Trump blasted Cruz and dug up an less-than-flattering shot of Cruz's wife Heidi to tweet out, comparing her to Melania Trump, saying "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words."

And the Trump-Cruz feud continued throughout Thursday with Cruz calling Trump "a sniveling coward."

It all started with a photo shoot featured in GQ's January 2000 issue, with a cover featuring Melania Knauss - now Mrs. Trump. The cover listed an article inside "Sex at 30,000 feet: Melania Knauss earns her air miles."

Thursday, March 24, 2016

The University of Missouri has announced that undergrads will have to complete three credit-hours of "diversity intensive" courses--which will focus on "understanding differing social groups" and "explore at least one form of social inequality, broadly defined"--in order to graduate.

This isn't a new idea; students demanded mandatory "multicultural" classes in 1990, but the idea was only approved this week (with 75% of a faculty vote). The school says that the requirements aren't a response to last year's unrest, but the press release strongly suggests that the chaos was a factor in their approval.

Similarly, starting in this semester, all incoming students must participate in a “Diversity@Mizzou” workshop intended to help them understand and appreciate cultural and racial diversity. At the inaugural training session in January, for example, students were treated to several examples of cultural appropriation, such as dressing up as a geisha or taco for Halloween, and were also told that the pursuit of inclusivity should take precedence over freedom of speech.

The Illinois Supreme Court on March 24 struck down a state law designed to shore up two of Chicago’s city pension funds, ruling that the reform violates the state constitution’s pension clause. But the decision does suggest a way the state could adopt constitutional reforms in the future: by coming to benefit-adjustment agreements with employees, either individually or through their unions’ collective bargaining.

The reform bill the court struck down would have required taxpayers to pay more into Chicago’s municipal workers’ and laborers’ pension funds, and would have slightly increased city employees’ contributions to their own retirements. It would also have reduced cost-of-living adjustments for retired city employees.

Six years ago, President Barack Obama signed into law the Affordable Care Act (ACA), radically transforming the U.S. health care system and insurance marketplace. Proponents of the ambitious legislation promised it would improve the quality of care for all Americans and provide access to health insurance for millions of people who couldn’t afford insurance but didn’t qualify for Medicaid. Proponents also said insurance companies would make billions of dollars in additional revenue from the expanded health insurance market, largely resulting from the individual mandate.

Sounds like a win-win-win scenario. What could possibly go wrong? A lot, apparently.

ComEd’s smart meter deployment is being propelled by a public relations campaign which minimizes and/or dismisses the health and safety impacts that the wireless meters are creating for their customers. What has been known for decades about the health effects of Radio Frequency/microwave radiation is now being passed off by ComEd as a small amount of Radio Frequency being emitted from a smart meter six times a day.

WASHINGTON DC - Gay rights have so overpowered religious rights in court decisions over the past few years that candidates endorsed by groups such as the Human Rights Campaign are now more often than not immediately nixed by social conservative voters.

In the case of U.S. Senator Mark Kirk, his campaign made no effort whatsoever to reach the state's Catholics, evangelicals or social conservatives in the recent Republican Primary. So, when two weeks ago, the Human Rights Campaign made a dramatic endorsement for Kirk over Democrat challenger Tammy Duckworth, it was no surprise.

However, the LGBT community was blind-sided by the endorsement, and are not happy with the HRC's pick for the fall election.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

OSWEGO - Oswego businessman James Marter gave his best to challenge incumbent Republican senator Mark Kirk - and right out of the box, he was met with reality when he learned that Governor Rauner didn't want left-leaning Kirk to have an opponent in the IL GOP primary.

Marter sounded off on his Facebook page this week - unedited:

I guess the question I have for the governor is what is he doing meddling in Republican Primaries in the first place? He was supposedly against that type of establishment political class gerrymandering in his run for Governor as an “outsider”, and claims to be against it when it comes to redistricting. And to be clear, I am not talking about simply being for a candidate and providing them assistance.

Trust me, I know better than anyone this election primary, the power of the Governor’s money and the cowardice of those under its influence. When I entered the race for U.S. Senator against incumbent, but hardly Republican Mark Kirk, I was assuming a level playing field. I can assure you that did not happen. On day two, I found out that the governor’s and Kirk’s people were none too happy with little known me. What were they afraid of? I was and still am, nobody special. The plan was to get Kirk on the ballot (see links below) but swap him out before the Primary was over. However, I am not sure what geniuses downstate came up with that plan. Based on Kirk’s victory speech on election night, I am pretty sure he was never down with the plan. Time will tell and we shall see.

Trump said that he wants to Ricketts to stop spending money on ads against him, or he'd run ads against how the Ricketts are running the Chicago Cubs' baseball franchise - even though the Cubs won the 2015 National League Division Series over the St. Louis Cardinals, but came up short of the World Series competition.

Even Sports Illustrated's baseball expert Tom Verducci said last week that “the Cubs are the best team in baseball."

But Trump said the Ricketts have something to hide, even though he doesn't know them.

Since November of last year, our Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago, with the blessing and under the leadership of Metropolitan Iakovos of Chicago, has undertaken a major lobbying effort to gain official recognition by the President of the United States of the Genocide taking place in Syria and Iraq. This past Thursday (March 17), that became a reality with the historical announcement by Secretary of State John Kerry. That followed an unanimous bipartisan vote by the House of Representatives a week earlier and previous support from the European Union and the Pope of Rome amongst others.

Some may dismiss this act as merely words, devoid of significance. But words do matter, as does the courage to officially recognize acts of evil for all to see.

Thanks to early voting ballots, Gov. John Kasich ran fourth in a three-person race in the Arizona primary when Sen. Marco Rubio led him by 25,000 votes according to ABC News, even though Rubio dropped out of the GOP race on March 15 after he lost Florida.

Yet even now Rubio has more delegates than Gov. Kasich who won his home state.

Ohio is the only state Kasich has won this year. So far, Donald Trump has won 20 state contests and now has 738 delegates of 1,237 he needs to win a majority on the first ballot in Cleveland.

Trump has lost 12 states to rival candidates. Sen. Ted Cruz has won eight states and now has 483 delegates. John Kasich has won just his home state and has only 143 delegates with no mathematical path at all to a majority of delegates. Even Rubio, who dropped out, has 166 delegates--23 more than Kasich. So why is Kasich still in the race? My most charitable guess is that his delusional vanity is at stake and the most cynical guess is that he knows he is playing to the role of spoiler and just does not care.

In a surprise filing ahead of a scheduled court appearance, the FBI announced it might have a way to crack into the iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino terrorists without needing to force Apple to compromise the security on its own product. On Sunday, a third party that the FBI swears isn’t another branch of the U.S. government (a.k.a. the NSA) demonstrated a method that could possibly crack the phone used by Syed Farook. “Testing is required to determine whether it is a viable method that will not compromise data on Farook’s iPhone,” government lawyers wrotein their Monday filing. “If the method is viable, it should eliminate the need for the assistance from Apple Inc. ("Apple”) set forth in the All Writs Act Order in this case.“

From the beginning, the government said the only way it could access the data in the phone was to compel Apple to give the government a backdoor to the device. However, the fact that it was entertaining third-party advice, listening to unknown members of the tech security world, shows that siccing the All Writs Act on Apple wasn’t a move of last resort. It implies that, all along, the FBI simply wanted to change the security landscape in its favor.

What may be most notable here is that the government fears an unfavorable ruling on the All Writs Act. Most legal analysts think a court would smack down the government’s request, setting the opposite precedent from the one sought by the FBI. In other words, the government has a lot to lose.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Watching footage of Barack H. Obama’s trip to Cuba, which the sycophant press never fails to call “historic,” one cannot help but ask some questions.

Why are the celebratory crowds so much smaller than in Obama’s past tours, such as his triumphal visits to Europe and the Middle East in 2008? Where are the throngs brimming with adulation?

How did Obama choose what places to visit (past presidents have typically visited churches, museums, manufacturing centers, theaters, and similar shining tributes to the culture of the host country)? Or perhaps did he not choose them; were they chosen for him - and for the American audience - by a ministry of propaganda, as in the longstanding Russian model?

And what might be running through the minds of the audiences, as they witness the first American president since the revolution to not only visit them, but seem to be friendly with the Castro brothers? Might they question America? Might they question their very eyes and ears?

There are many answers, but to find them, we must travel back in time a bit, and consider the history of that little island, and of the world, in days long gone by.

“If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States.” ― Henry A. Wallace, 33rd Vice President of the United States

This is an indictment of every politician who has ever sold us out for the sake of money and power, it is a condemnation of every politician who has ever lied to us in order to advance their careers, and it is a denunciation of every political shill who has sacrificed our freedoms on the altar of Corporate America.